1. Agriculture
2. Art, Aboriginal Australian
3. Autobiographies
4. Beaches
5. Bush medicine
6. Bush tucker
7. Camping
8. Cooking
9. Country
10. Families
11. Fishing
12. Food
13. Guugu Yimidhirr people (Y82) (Qld SD55-13)
14. Helpfulness
15. Historical Fiction
16. History
17. Holidays
18. Hunting and gathering
19. Love
20. Missions
21. Stolen generations
22. Visual literacy

Each Christmas, Wanda tells us, all the girls at Hope Vale Mission got a parcel with three dresses and three undies. ‘You should have seen the joy on out faces when we put on those second-hand dresses. We were so happy.’

This is a warm, beautifully told tale that presents a life in Australia that most would not recognise or understand. Wanda Gibson grew up on Hope Vale mission in Far North Queensland. The book presents Wanda’s time with her close-knit supportive family and revolves around the beach holiday on the two weeks a year they had time off. They worked together to catch fish and gather bush food. And at night Wanda’s parents told stories about the old mission where they had been sent after being taken from their Country and family.

Woven through the tale are the three dresses; ‘one to wash, one to wear and one spare.’ The dresses were special and gave protection from the sun, wind, and rain. Holiday time was fun and vastly different to Wanda’s life on the mission. There she went to school in the morning and the afternoons were spent working on the farm in all weathers and for no pay.

Wanda Gibson is an accomplished artist, and her naïve style artwork is a strong feature. Her technique is colourful yet sparse, the family is the centrepiece on each page, and they are always helping each other. Dad carries a tired child, the children collect eggs or Mum mends clothes. We see a warm, happy family who make the best of what they have.

People today will wonder at this life. What a mission is, or why they had to walk for two days to reach the beach and carry everything on their back. Why would a child be happy to receive second-hand clothes? These are excellent discussion points, and this book would be a useful text in a classroom. Growing up on a mission is a theme in several books in the database, other useful titles include: ‘Kunyi;’ ‘Our World : Bardi Jaawi : Life at Ardiyooloon’ or books by May L O’Brien

Wanda Gibson is a Nukgal Wurra woman of the Guugu Yimithirr people (on her mum’s side) and lives in Hope Vale on the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Her dad is a Yuuethawarra man, and his country is around Cape Melville. Both of Wanda’s parents were Stolen Generation and were brought to Cape Bedford Mission when they were ten or twelve. Wanda is a master weaver – she weaves baskets, birds and fish from dried grass. She is also a painter and completed a Diploma of Visual Arts at Cairns TAFE in 2014.

Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2025

1. University of Queensland Press Teachers’ Notes written by Cara Shipp for ‘Three Dresses’ by Wanda Gibson https://d3f44jafdqsrtg.cloudfront.net/books/Three-Dresses_Teachers-Notes_FINAL-pdf.pdf
2. ReadPlus 16 May 2024. Fran Knight reviews ‘Three Dresses’ by Wanda Gibson https://www.readplus.com.au/reviews/three-dresses
3. Momo Celebrating Time to Read 25 April 2024 review of ‘Three Dresses’ by Wanda Gibson https://momotimetoread.blogspot.com/2024/04/three-dresses-by-wanda-gibson.html
4. Magpie Goose website ‘Wanda Gibson’ (about the author of ‘Three Dresses’) https://magpiegoose.com/collections/wanda-gibson?
5. ‘Hope Vale: A Community Rebuilt’ 15 February 2023 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=525430389695171
6. Sydney Morning Herald 20 March 2025 ‘First time author makes history by winning richest literary prize – with a kids’ book’ https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/first-time-author-makes-history-by-winning-richest-literary-prize-with-a-kids-book-20250319-p5lknx.html